


Imperial Pet

by kayforpay



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Collars, Dubious Consent, F/M, Femdom, Mind Control, Mommy Kink, Multi, Multiple Orgasms, Overstimulation, Rape/Non-con Elements, continued by commission, later chapters planned, misplaced affection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-01-11 02:37:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18421089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayforpay/pseuds/kayforpay
Summary: Karkat's goal was always to be the first mutant threshcutioner, but he's alright being discovered by the Empress instead.





	1. A Crowning Achievement

**Author's Note:**

> this might be triggering. please read with caution.

The night is hot, stuffy, the air still and full of talking, everyone desperate to be heard first and clearest. Karkat keeps his hood up, peering around shoulders as he got closer to the front of the crowd. This was stupid. This was a suicide mission. He had come too far to turn around, and he wasn’t going to keep suffering like this, hiding like a rat in the shadows of society. He was good. Strong. He could kill.

And the Empress is here. She came out for the rally. It had to mean something, walking up to see her even with his blood, even with the color flushing into his irises. He was strong, and brave, for this. Stupid, sure, but brave. That had to count for something. It had to. She’s sitting on a dias, her trident over her lap and her eyes focused mostly on her claws, chipping the polish off of them with a bored expression on her face.

Somehow, she’s even prettier in person. He’s sweating through his clothes, hands shaking, when he reaches the front, and doesn’t even look at the bored recruiter, looking past him and directly at the Empress. He isn’t wearing the contacts, or the glasses. They have to notice. He has to stand out. That’s the entire point.

He pulls his hood down, and looks the recruiter in the eye, watching the dawning recognition on their face while he spoke. “Threshcutioner. Karkat Vantas. Sign is cancer.” He says, his voice shaking. The recruiter was standing, and everything seemed to be moving too slowly. His breathing echoes loudly in his ears, his pusherbeat thudding too fast. Someone grabs his shoulder.

A collar clasps around his throat before he can even blink, and everything leaves him. He’s weak, instantly, barely able to hold himself up, hold his eyes open. The Empress blinks up from her claws and locks eyes with him. She stands. He feels so faint, but she’s walking towards him, shoving her guard aside roughly. They roll his head back so she can inspect him, and he can smell her perfume when she leans in towards him, a smile pulling at her perfect mouth.

“I’m takin’ this one home. Put him in my buggy.” She says, finally, and Karkat wants to weep. He isn’t dead. Maybe she’s going to train him. Or eat him. He’s manhandled into the back of a stretch limo, pink, and dropped on the carpeting inside. “How long’s this shit s’pposed to keep on?”

He blacks out after that, wondering how he never knew about the collars working on trolls without psions, too.

When he wakes up, he’s exhausted and sore, like he’s been held in one position for too long, laying on his face on a freezing tile floor. The room smells sanitary, and he wonders if he’s been institutionalized, or if they’re just getting ready to cook him. He pulls himself upright, and stumbles to the wall. It’s smooth, cool, but the room itself isn’t cold; it’s actually temperate, and comfortable. He’s shirtless, but his gills, for once, feel like they’re not dry. Something flowery and slick is spread along his ribs. Why bother? They’re going to kill him.

The door clicks open, and he presses his back to the wall. “Come here.” A jade, wearing black with accents of jade, a nametag he can’t read. He doesn’t move. “Come. Here. You need to be cleaned for Her Imperiousness.” They hold a hand out, and Karkat sees a cattlegrub prod in their other hand. Better to just go. He doesn’t take their hand, and they grab the back of his neck to lead him.

This must be a palace. Everything is marble, shining and sterile and empty. There are statues of the Empress everywhere, and he notices he’s barefoot, too. Guards ignore him as he’s dragged through the halls, and the jade doesn’t speak to him, only walking with quick, clipped steps. He feels weak, pudgy around these olives and indigos and violets, cut and solid as they are in their, honestly, skimpy uniforms. One or two of the rusty servants look at him and whisper, but the jade glances at them and they scatter, carrying away laundry and silver.

Their destination is a bathing block. No load gaper, even, only a deep, wide tub and a little showering stall in the corner. The jade’s cool hand drops from the back of his neck and shoves him into the room.

“Undress and go to the showering stall. We’re going to wash and dress you. You will not be hurt. We don’t want to hurt you.” Their voice softens. “We’re going to take care of you.”

He nods, slowly. He’s about to ask why, but they leave, closing the door behind themself and walking away quickly. He tries it, curiously, but even with it unlocked, he wouldn’t get far. He’s trapped, and he knows that, but the panic he should feel is distant. Maybe he was drugged, or maybe he’s in shock. He feels dizzy, for just a second, but then he undresses, and sits on the low stool in the shower section, and curls in on himself as much as he can.

Some time passes, and then the jade returns, with a group of three other jades, none of whom speak. Only the one has a tag, and he notices that it’s just a symbol. They must be in charge. The water is turned on, and he’s made to feel it until it’s warm enough for him, but they won’t let him scald his skin like he prefers. He shivers in the air when they start to wet his hair, and one skitters off to turn the heat on in the room before coming back to comb his unruly hair, tutting softly at the knots. Another buffs his horns, delicately, with some oil that smells fancy and feels smoother than anything he’s ever used when he dips a finger into it.

They speak to each other, and only gently ask him to move as needed. His horns make him feel pliable and he whines when the jade working on them stops, and they apologize. The one behind him supports him silently when he melts back against them for their counterpart in front to wash his hair, gentle, working out the knots and massaging his scalp, while the other two lift his arms to wash him, careful with his gills; more careful than he’s ever been, especially. He might fall asleep.

Them washing his thighs makes him yelp, and he feels his nook start to swell and his face burn even in the situation, but none of them mention it. He closes his legs, and they pull them apart, washing his sheathe, his thighs, gentle enough that he feels like his bulge might slide out, but it doesn’t happen, thank whatever gods.

“He’s sensitive.” One of them mumbles, chiding, and he waits for them to laugh at him, or punish him somehow. “Don’t do that again.”

How is he not in trouble? He can’t wrap his pan around it, him nearly unsheathing into a stranger’s hand and they’re in trouble for him being too fucking touch-starved for anyone to be able to wash his hair. He’s thankful, even if he’s confused by it. The voice in the back of his pan tells him he should run, or at least try, but he doesn’t want to. He can’t will his legs to move, can’t open his eyes (they tell him not to, so the shampoo doesn’t get into it), can’t think past the cool hands gently cleaning him, moving him.

When they start to massage conditioner into his hair, it stops even exciting him. He’s only relaxed, limp and sleepy, his head hanging and his legs splayed out. It almost feels pale, how calming it is, how comfortable he feels, and his pan wanders to a fantasy where each of the jades are Gamzee, in all his softness, all his delicate hands. He was always careful when he rinsed Karkat’s hair.

It ended too soon. He wasn’t ready to move when the jades started lifting him, walking him to the tub. One of them had filled it with scented water, something warm, cinnamon? Warm, sweet, soothing. He lowered himself into the water with a sigh, shivering at the heat penetrating into his bones and pushing him further into relaxing. Another conditioner is poured into his hair and worked in, slower this time, even gentler, and after a few long minutes of relaxing, the jades start to push his cuticles back.

He watches them, half asleep, as they scrape at his nails, dull down his claws, massage lotion into his hands. He doesn’t know how much time passes before they pull him up and out of the water, and wrap him in a robe. He’s sat in a chair and they dry him, comb his hair back smooth, and finish doing his nails. He’s still limp when they paint his nails pink, when they dry him off, and he only straightens up when they ask him, their voices soft.

The first thing they dress him in is silk, too thin to actually cover anything from view, and then a collar. This one is cold, metal, but doesn’t drain his energy, and he touches it with his newly-dulled claws. Maybe they realized he wouldn’t be able to run, or maybe they didn’t care if he tried. Maybe he didn’t even really want to run. Thinking that makes him feel sick, but he feels cared for, and even if he’s dressed in something more gauzy than tissue paper, it’s comfortable.

Even the makeup they put on him, plumping his lips and curling his eyelashes and giving him a look lik hollowed cheeks, it’s comfortable. Better, definitely, than anything he’d used before, any cheap stuff that made him itch and swell. He feels good, _attractive._ Like he could be desired.

He doesn’t get any shoes, though. Only the collar and the silk, but he’s not lead through the halls proper now that he’s washed and dressed, not paraded past the guards, which is calming. He’s ushered through a door in the side of the room, lead into a small, plush room, and told to sit down on a pillowy platform, which he does. It smells like incense and sugar, and he only manages to sit still, basking in the strange feeling of being cared for, for a few moments before he’s up and looking around.

The room is plush, but sparse besides pillows and the platform, everything in black or a deep, dark pink, almost black with it, and the light is down low. Nothing seems to actually be burning incense, but maybe that’s something the palace does. As he looks, the hair on the back of his neck rises, and he’s overcome with a realization.

He might have been auctioned off. Some fancy ass highblood might saunter through the door and slap him around for fun, and there’s nothing he can do. He doesn’t even have claws because he was too concerned with soaking up fake attention and being primed for this. He’s going to die and he didn’t even fight. His throat feels tight and hot, shuddering while he sits back in his spot, and wonders vaguely if his makeup will run when he cries. He’s going to die.

The wall pulls itself open, and he jumps, skittering back into the corner, and watches someone come inside, holding his breath. Maybe they won’t want him, maybe that would be better, just a quick death instead of being… Instead of anything else. That had to be better. Even if he didn’t fight. He feels sick.

And then, he feels calm. A heavy, saccharine calm, coating all his thoughts with some kind of strange, overwhelming relaxation, but not so much that he feels sleepy, his eyelids don’t even droop. He just feels calm, secure. Comfortable, every thought in his pan smothered by a cold serenity that almost makes him miss her entrance.

Her entrance. The Empress. In the flesh, with her hair trailing behind her, her heels clicking against the floor until she reaches the thick carpeting and kicks them off, her bright, dangerous eyes that glow an unnatural pink and make him not want to look at anything else. He feels exposed, but can’t convince himself to cover anything, uncurls even as she moves closer. She has a little bowl with her, but he barely looks at it.

“Come on over here.” She says, sitting down at the edge of the platform. She’s stunning. He feels dizzy. He can smell her perfume, her hair, he could touch her. He could actually reach out and touch the Empress, the real life Empress. “Come on. Tell me your name.”

She’s commanding. He creeps towards her slowly, and she grabs his wrist, pulling him closer to herself with no effort; no huff of breath, no strain, nothing to even show she had to move him. He shivers. Her fins are wide and pierced, each three or four times, with chains dangling between them, like she isn’t worried someone might grab them. Her claws don’t dig into his wrist, but they’re close. She’s only holding him lightly, like she knows he won’t fight her hold. He isn’t that stupid. It takes her tugging at him again for him to remember that she asked him something.

“Karkat. Vantas. I’m Karkat.” He mumbles, and she releases his wrist, instead stroking her claws down his cheek, and he shivers, all too aware of how easily she could slice him open, cut him ear to ear across his throat. She could kill him, and he doesn’t think he could even find it in himself to mind, right at the moment. “Your highness.”

The Empress takes her hand back and plucks something out of the bowl; a truffle, decadent. She takes a bite of it, chews slowly while Karkat watches and realizes he hasn’t eaten since… The night before he went to be recruited. It smells fruity, expensive. There are gold flakes on the top of it. His stomach growls. She coos, and holds it out towards him.

“Open your mouth for me, Karkat.” She purrs, and he does, instantly. He can’t even think about it before he does, and he’s instantly rewarded with the candy being pressed against his tongue. “What a good boy you are for mommy.”

The chocolate is bitter, makes his mouth water, distracts him from what she’s said until she picks up another truffle and repeats the process, cupping her free hand around his jaw and watching him closely when he takes it again. His eyelashes flutter, this one is sweeter. He swallows softly, but lets the chocolate melt on his tongue, humming at her to show his enjoyment of it. It feels dreamlike, like he’s floating in pink mist, like he’s asleep imagining things much too clearly, because she’s actually purring, stroking his hair back from his face.

He swallows the chocolate with almost a moan, his ears twitching, and she takes his chin in her hand, turning his head towards herself while she takes a bite of another chocolate. She pulls his bottom lip down with the claw of her thumb, and then she kisses him. It’s so surprising that he doesn’t respond for a full second, not until she shoves her tongue into his mouth, chocolate melting in hers, and then he moans. It tastes good, and she’s cold, and possessive. She sets the bowl aside and pulls at him by the chin, dragging him forward.

Although she isn’t physically much larger than he is, she’s intimidating, commanding. Strong, pulling him into her lap and biting his lip when he tries to pull back to breathe. He doesn’t really even know how to do it, kiss like this. It isn’t like he’s had any real practice, since anyone he kissed would see him flush red and only Gamzee wouldn’t report it. It never made him react like this, anyway.

The Empress slides her hand down to sink her claws into his inner thigh and drag him forward, into her lap proper, and he has to brace himself on her shoulders. Her claws graze the silk barely covering him, and then press barely harder and tear through it like it’s nothing, leaving the ragged ends to fall around his legs and her fingers to access his gills. His thighs twitch in, and she growls, her other hand, in his hair, tightening so hard his eyes water, but she kisses him again. She doesn’t seem angry, maybe just rough.

It hurts, but not in a way he wants to fight against. His nook and sheathe swell with blood, but he doesn’t dare to move against her, and her iron grip on his hair. Her mouth trails down his neck, to the center of his throat, and she bites. He whines, shuddering hard, as she breaks the skin, just over the collar, with a low, ancient snarl. She could eat him. She could rip him to pieces.

His bulge twists into her lap. He must be fucked up. He has to be. This shouldn’t be turning him on, but it is, and he whines, kneading at her chest and shoulders while she laps at the blood, finally releasing his hair to grab his bulge, squeezing it once.

“I bet you’ve never had a bulge in you, huh?” She murmurs, and he nods, embarrassed. “Course not. Might break you in half. Lay down.” He whimpers, and she slaps his bulge, hard enough that he feels the breath rush out of his lungs, and her voice is low when she speaks. “Lay down, Karkat.”

He stumbles over himself and the torn silk to follow her order, and glances back at her to see how he should lay; she blinks, and he guesses to lay on his back. She’ll move him if she needs to. She’s so pretty. He tastes her lipstick on his lips.

Karkat’s legs press together when he lays down, his nook wet and dripping down to mess on the platform, and she shoves them apart, looking down at him thoughtfully. He can feel himself being examined, and even though he wants to push his legs back together, her hands won’t let him. He can feel bruises forming already, and squirms under her eyes. It isn’t that he doesn’t want her eyes on him, watching him like a predator, but it’s embarrassing, his nook on display.

She watches him for what feels like eons, and then she slides her hands up his thighs, and strokes his nook with her thumbs, around the outside and pulling him open, circling his entrance and his pleasurenub in time, and smiling her sharp smile when he sobs little moans, his hands twitching on the platform. His bulge slaps against his stomach, and he can’t keep his eyes on her anymore, even when one of her hands leaves and her rubbing against his pleasurenub gets less focused and hard.

He only opens his eyes when he hears a zipper, and peeks through his lashes at her own flushed sheathe until she pulls her other hand back and he has to whimper. He opens his mouth to complain, but she shoves her thumb into his mouth, making him taste himself. She moves over him, until her hips are over his face, and then drags his mouth open. Her voice is deep and growly when she speaks again.

“Don’t bite.”

There isn’t enough time for him to wonder through the fluttery fog in his pan what she means before she pulls his head up to press his open mouth against her sheathe. He huffs, wiggling, and then his pan is flooded with her scent; not the perfume he could smell in her limo, but her skin and sweat and herself, and it makes his bulge vent prematerial over his stomach, even before that same heavy calm has him drag his tongue against her sheatheslit, moaning as it rewards him with the matching taste of her.

She sighs, and her hand spreads over the back of his head while he works on her, moaning against her skin and grabbing the backs of her thighs like he has any chance of keeping her still. “Good boy. Keep doing that, pretty thing, I’ll give you a reward. You’ll love my bulges so much you’ll cry.” She says, her tone heavy with promise, and as he wonders about the multiple part, her bulge slides into his mouth.

It’s so thick, he wonders if she’ll let him choke, but she releases his head, and he falls back off of it as it splits, spreads. Three? Four? He drops his mouth open, and two shove into it, and he moans, doing his best not to let them push back so far that he gags, and she strokes his hair back off his forehead. He can’t manage all of them. The fact that she can even have so many is surprising, but they can’t fit inside him. They can’t.

He wants to try them, even knowing he’ll fail.

“Speak up.” She says, stroking his cheek with the tip of her claw. “I can’t hear ya, guppy.”

Only then does he realize that his mouth is moving, and he’s mumbling. He clears his throat, and squeezes her hips. “I-I want to try, m-my Empress. Your highness.” He doesn’t know what to call her, and he pauses for a second. “Ma’am.”

“Cute.” She chuckles, and his pusher skips a beat at her smile, at the compliment, his hands sliding off her hips as she moves down his body again. His bulge writhes with some of hers, but they don’t stay close enough for long, because she steps off to stand near the edge of the platform, looking him over again. “Pretty boy, huh?”

His ears twitch, and he feels warm, baring his nook without any shame, crooning noises that put his favorite pornstars to shame and lifting himself for her, but she just grabs his hips and drags him down to the edge, until he’s nearly hanging off of it, until her bulges can slither cold and slick against his nook, none of them quite aiming to enter him yet. All Karkat can really do is moan and mumble little pleads, pulling what of the outfit is left up his chest to expose himself more, trying to encourage her.

It works, after a few seconds that feel like hours.

She wraps her hand around the bases of her bulges, wrangling them together, and then twists only one free, and her other hand pushes his chest down until he’s laying flat and can’t see anymore. He can feel her dragging the fluted tip of her bulge over his nook, though, and he chirps, twitching his hips to try and push her into himself without fully knowing what he’s doing. When her bulge slides into him, he gasps, because she’s freezing cold, and it makes him shiver. It’s so much, even with just this little, and then she’s moving, pressing further into him slow, steady, expecting him to keep up.

He can feel that that is her intention, he can tell that’s what she wants, because the fog in his pan feels clearer, more focused, her voice almost rings in his head. He knows that’s what she wants, and he’s determined to do his best, closing his eyes and gripping the sheets while she rocks her hips, her cold almost burning him as it spreads deeper and deeper into himself. He won’t make it. He can’t.

It takes her only a few seconds to meet the resistance of his untouched nook, the depths that his own bulge was never able to reach, and he feels everything inside of him clench suddenly, his eyes shooting open. She presses at his chest with one hand, the other pressing against his nook where she’s holding her bulge still. At least he isn’t just going to force his nook open for her. His pan is full of gentle orders to relax, and he can’t argue.

He can’t stop himself from relaxing, not that he wants to. It overcomes his pan, his conscious, seeps into the deep reaches that control his inner muscles where he can’t, mentally. It takes a little while, it feels like forever, but he starts to relax, and as he does, she rocks her hips more, huffing little groans and muttering about _hot_ and _tight_ and _filling him up._

This is going to kill him. He feels like he’s going to die, overwhelmed, and only calms when he looks up at her, her bright, glowing eyes. She’s so pretty. She’s so good to him. He feels good, he feels his wet making a sticky puddle around his ass on the platform, but it’s good, he can almost see himself through her eyes, see himself as the wet, willing, wanting thing he is, his neck stretched out with little scabs in three concentric rings on his throat where she bit him, his mouth moving almost silently, begging for more.

She’s willing to give more, and he’s ecstatic, wriggling his hips even while his stomach clenches painfully at the deeper reaches of his nook being filled. He feels himself shivering, and feels her hands, feels her eyes on him, it’s so much. He feels dizzy. _Relax._ He can’t breathe. _Relax._ He’s so warm, so dizzy.

“Go on and come for me, guppy.” She hisses, and he can’t help but follow the order, spilling over his stomach with his horrible, illegal shade while she eases her bulge deeper into him, her hand moving from pressing at his chest to wrap around his bulge and stroke him through his orgasm, until he’s too sensitive and she only stops because he grabs at her wrist and whimpers. “Almost got one, pretty boy.”

He huffs a little chirp, blinking up at her through the bleary fog of overstimulation. “Almost?” He wonders if he’s as loud as he feels he is, all the moans and cries he’s been making, or if he’s being quiet without realizing it. The Empress laughs, touches something inside him, and he loses track of anything he was trying to think about as she shoves the last bit of herself into him.

It almost hurts, but not quite. The burn is there, the stretch, but it’s not painful, not quite. She’s taken just as long as she needed too, and he’s panting, shivering, while her other bulges slither against his nook and thighs. It’s so much. He reaches down to feel where she’s connected to him, the seal of his nook around her, and she pushes his hand away, but holds his wrist, and then leads his fingers back. He touches the tender edge of himself as she encourages another of her bulges into him, and he gasps sharply as it slides in.

The sound that Karkat makes is low, deep in his chest, and he melts, encouraging his nook to relax to accept it. He wants to take them. He wants to be a good boy, a good pet for her, and the mist in his pan might have something to do with it, but he doesn’t care. He wants to be good, he wants to have all of her bulges in himself, he wants to be hers completely, her good pet.

That thought isn’t his, but he accepts it, accepts his place with her. He wants to be good enough that she has him stay, that she keeps him. He wants to be hers, wants her to look at him the way she is, possessive, all the time, wants everyone to know that he’s her pet.

The burn of her filling him is blinding. It isn’t pain, just a constant feeling of more, more and more being put into him, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself, his hands twitching between his nook, his chest, his sides, while she rocks her hips shallowly. He can’t help thinking she should hurry up, and then immediately changes his mind, knowing he would only be hurt by that. It’s so much, buzzing over-sensitive along the nerves of his spinal cord, into the space past pleasure, where it’s just too much where it just builds and builds with no end, no zenith to throw him over the edge of.

He can feel his gills fluttering on his sides, and she does something with her hands, he feels them brush against his thighs, before the other two bulges of hers find some give in his body to press into. He’s going to break no matter what. It’s too much. She rolls her hips, they press further, and he leaves his body as he comes, spilling almost nothing while she keeps easing into him, and for just a second he sees himself, head thrown back and mouth dropped open, eyes wide and staring at her as she grins.

Then, he’s back in his body, and he’s shaking, heaving sharp breaths while she purrs and coos, smiling down at him. He can barely hear her over his breathing, over the ringing distant in his ears. “Good boy. Look at you, taking all of them. What a good little pet.” He would swell with pride if he could actually catch his breath, if he had any space in his body around her bulges.

“Th-- _huhh._ Thank you. Emp. Empresh.” He slurs, shivering head to toe, his legs threatening to cramp where they’re bent sharply over her arms. The burn is still there, but not increasing, and she resettles his legs, which makes him whine, and then her hips are under his knees, his thighs are pressed against her, and he realizes he did it. He did it, he did everything. “Ehh, Empress. Please. Please.”

She laughs, stroking down his chest with her claws. He feels the silk tear more, and tries to arch against the touch, but only manages to writhe, desperate to interact. “Cute little thing, huh? So fuckin’ desperate. I love it.” Her voice is low, reverberating in his chest and his pan, he feels it in his teeth and his throat.

He grips the platform so tight his knuckles crack when she finally moves, immediately dragged back to the edge of climax, nearly overwhelmed again. His teeth clench, and he’s shuddering. It’s too much. It almost aches. He can’t breathe. She mumbles something, but then she kisses him, pets at his side, and he feels better. Relaxes his hands, his jaw, his legs. It’s still intense, but different. He can breathe, and he does, slow, deep breaths that taper off into high moans as her movements get more fluid, moving in him deep and calm. Her bulges are doing all the work, she only moves her hips in little rotations, and he chitters at her, his ears twitching.

Too sensitive to come, he hangs at the pinnacle of orgasm, mewling and wriggling, slowly letting himself ease into it, and she starts to make pleased, seadweller growls, like he’s heard in porn before, and he feels amazing for hearing them. He loves her. He adores her, he needs her, and she chose him, she kept him, and he’s being so good for her, he feels so good with her, everything is good. He’s so sensitive, and she kisses him again, deeply.

He’s too warm, dizzy, and when he comes he only shudders, his hands tangling in her long hair to hold her. She huffs, pushes his hands down to his sides, and sits back up, and he whines at the loss for only a second before she’s moving faster, harder, enough that each thrust jars him, and it’s too much. He can’t come again, there’s no way. There’s nothing left of him, he’s so tired, so sensitive it almost hurts, and all he can do is squirm and sob, tears and sweat running down his face, his hair sticky and tangled against his forehead, the back of his neck, and his fingers tangled in the ruined, delicate silk.

The Empress bares her teeth, flares her fins, and he slides his hands up to hold the warm metal around his neck, legs twitching. She’s beautiful, and he tries to say as much, tries to mumble, to speak. He’s crying, he can’t breathe, and then she slams into him, shivering herself, and he’s _full._

Not bulges, not just that, but ice cold material, colder than anything he’s ever felt in his life, directly against the overhot point in his nook that he knows, vaguely and only from novels, as his seedflap, and then he screams, his head falling back, as his seedflap opens to accept her material, and he comes again, so hard it hurts, his bulge slapping against his stomach and his nook trying to clench around her bulges, trying to milk any material she might not have poured into him from her.

She snarls, softly, and gropes idly at his chest, his thighs, rolling her hips to work herself through her own orgasm. He can’t move. He’s limp, whimpering and sensitive and feeling too full, sweat sticking the silk to his skin, making the collar uncomfortable. He _hurts._ It’s a good, deep ache, around his hips, the base of his spine, the feeling of his seedflap holding material for the first time, but it hurts, and he’s crying, he can’t move. He doesn’t move, even when she resheathes, her bulges deflating and sliding out of him directly, and she lets his legs down, shuffles him back up onto the platform.

“Good boy. Stay awake. Your jades will clean you up. I’ll see you later, pretty thing.” She coos, petting his hair even though he feels disgusting, and he purrs, lifting his head for her, crooning, and then sobbing harder when she pulls away. “Mommy has work to do. Be a good boy.”

He whines, not even turning his head to watch her leave, too tired and needy for it. He doesn’t want to watch her leave him. His eyes close, and he might fall asleep, though he can’t tell, between her door closing and the door he came through opening, followed by soft, worried little mumbles from the jades, from his jades. Their hands are cool, not as cold as the Empress’s, but cool and calming, nice, when they stroke his hair back, cooing softly.

The one with the pin is the one over him when he opens his eyes, and he sniffles. “What’s y-your name?” He mumbles, leaning into their hands.

They blink, and look at the other jades for a second. The others are wiping at him, cleaning him up, and the one with the pin strokes his cheek, gentle. “Trinee. I’m Trinee, Karkat. Relax. You did so well.” They’re so soft. His hands tighten on their long sleeves, and they pull him closer, into a proper hug, and he sobs again, relieved. “There you go. Just relax, Karkat.” Their voice is so soft, so soothing. The other jades echo them, cooing softly, but he’s too tired to ask their names.

“Trinee.” He purrs, turning his head into their neck when they sit him up more and everything shifts inside himself. It’s a new, not entirely bad feeling. They shush him, softly. “I’m. Sticky. ‘m sorry. Clothes’re ruined. I’m sorry.”

They shush him again, softer, and then he’s on his feet, his arms around Trinee’s shoulders, and then the other jades supporting him as well, fairly dragging him back to the bathroom. “You’re okay, Karkat. We’re going to clean you up, and then you’re going to get some sleep. You’re so good, don’t worry.” Trinee coos, and he lazily flops his head to the side, trilling at them, and they stroke his hair. He’s stripped, again, and wiped down, cleaned up just as much as they can without him having to move around much, let alone let go of Trinee’s shoulders.

He’s so tired. Trinee mumbles to the other jades, and once he’s clean and dried, they dress him in loose, comfortable flannel, and tuck him into a plush bed. It isn’t the same room as before. At some point, he must have dozed off, because he can’t remember seeing the guards, but he’s in a new room, a large, mostly empty room. There’s a bed, which he’s in, and a vanity, and a closet to one side. Trinee points to another door, explaining that it’s a full bathroom, and that he’ll be prepared and cleaned there from now on.

“This is your block.” They say, trying, though not very hard, to pull his arms off their waist. “You live here. We’ll bring you meals here, unless the Empress asks for you at them, or brings you to court. We’re always going to be just in the next room for you. We have a block right across the hall. This button wakes me up.”

He nods, slowly, and tucks himself against their lap more closely, sleepy. “Okay. That’s okay. Thank you. Thank you so much, Trinee, I’m so fucking lost here. I’m happy, but I’m… I don’t know what to do with myself.” He doesn’t think to ask about his friends, if he can call them, if he can visit anyone. If he can leave for only a little while, and come back to Her.

“Stay awake. They made you some food, and then you can sleep.” Trinee says, instead of anything acknowledging that they’re doing any more than they’re, presumably, paid for. They drag him upright, and eventually give up on trying to get him to sit up on his own, and tucks him against their chest, the blanket tucked around them.

The other jades have some kind of salty soup, with fish and seaweed, and they feed him a few bites, until he gathers himself enough to feed himself, still leaning heavily against Trinee. He feels… Better. Sore, sensitive, but better, good. They putter around his block, lookin through the closet and setting out products for him to use while he eats, taking his time to chew not just because he’s exhausted. It’s good soup, and he doesn’t want to rush. He never likes rushing his food; who knows when he’ll be able to savor it again, after all?

When he finishes his soup and wipes his face, Trinee again tries to get him to settle into a pile of pillows (these ones are white, instead of pink), and he finally accepts it, but he misses their cold chest against his back as soon as he relaxes into the pile. They direct the other jades, and he lets his eyes close, while they circle around his bed, and he gasps out of a gentle doze when they kneel on the edges of his bed, and then softly massage something cold into his skin, his face and neck, careful of the bites.

Trinee combs his hair back off his face, and when he starts to speak to them again, when the other jades have left before them, he gets a soft, cold kiss on his temple, and he can’t remember what he wanted to say, too busy chirping at them for more. He doesn’t get it, but he feels good, and his face flushes to his hairline. They’re beautiful, but he only thinks that, watching them leave his block and waiting for the click of a lock that never sounds. Not that he has the energy to explore.

He falls asleep thinking about Trinee’s carefully braided hair, and wondering if they would braid his if he grew it out.

Karkat’s dreams are foggy and tinged pink, vague at every edge. Details bleed into each other, and he doesn’t even try to follow them, floating softly in the pink foggy void of sleep, comfortable and warm. When he wakes up, it’s to Trinee’s cold fingers brushing his hair off his face, and their gentle voice, and he turns his head towards them to face them before opening his eyes, purring soft and sleepy.

“You’ve been asked for, Karkat.” They say, and he nods. “Sit up for me.”

He does as they ask, and they pull a wide-toothed comb through his hair, just smoothing it while he struggles to wake up fully. “Where’re the others? What time is it?” It feels like he slept for a sweep, but he could sleep more. He would love to sleep more, and his bed is so soft, and his hips are so sore, and his nook is puffy. He feels bloated, and wonders what the material does if it isn’t removed. It must not be a terrible concern, or he’s sure that Trinee and the others would have had to deal with it before letting him sleep.

“They’re getting your outfit together. Your closet has yet to be stocked, so they had to go to a storage room.” They say, and then pause with a hand on his head, sighing softly. “And I thought you may want to have less going on first thing in the night. It’s a few hours after sunset. Court starts in an hour, and you’re to accompany the Empress to it. You’ll be dressed more conservatively than you were before, though. Don’t worry. You aren’t expected to speak to anyone, and you’re not to leave her side. Just let us dress you, and feed you, and you’ll be fine. Stay with her.”

He nods, slowly, and they go back to combing his hair while the other jades shuffle in, holding a collection of boxes between them and setting them on the bed around him. They greet him, and then they’re preparing him in a flurry, and he can hardly tell Trinee from the rest. They wash his face, rub some kind of powder into his hair that makes him sneeze, and comb it out, and it feels less greasy. They wipe down his arms, his chest, his thighs, and then pat some light perfume onto his skin, and put his makeup on, less severe than before.

They lift him from the bed, and dress him, pulling an undershirt over his head and buttoning a pressed shirt over it, then pulling some underwear onto him, followed by slacks. Everything is black, edged with pink, even the socks and then hard-soled leather shoes they put on him. One of the jades buffs his collar until it shines, and another dithers with Trinee about a coat, before eventually deciding that he would look overdone for just a court appearance.

“She has plans for him after. We don’t want him overdressed.” They say, and his ears perk up; hopefully the plans are something like dinner, and nothing that would push him into being too sore to be useful. “Go get his coffee, Felrin.”

He won’t remember that name. They leave, and he’s left to sit at the vanity and look at himself in the mirror, looking at his eyes and the bruise all over his throat. He looks like he’s been mauled, and he practices holding his head in such a way that it shows off his mark without lifting his chin too high to be a proper lowblood in a court of highbloods and seadwellers. He looks ridiculous, honestly, but he’s proud of the mark, proud of the soreness still radiating from his hips.

The coffee is hot and comes with a tray of flavored creamers, as well as a croissant, and he takes a few long minutes to enjoy it, purring as the heat fills his thorax. Then, as soon as he’s finished the group of jades all usher him out, wiping his lips, adjusting his hair, and dusting off crumbs through the halls, until they reach a little, dark side-door covered by a hanging tapestry, and slip into the court. It’s mostly empty, with a few other vassal types puttering around, and he stares at the arches, the columns, and the huge, hanging banners with the Empress’s face while he’s herded up onto the high point, right next to her seat.

He touches it, and then pulls his hand back. Beside and behind it, tucked away, is a smaller, though still ostentatious, seat for him, which Trinee fluffs the extra pillow on before pointing for him to sit. The room is filling with highbloods, clowns and seadwellers tromping in loudly, each speaking louder than the last, trying to be heard and seen as important, greeting friends or enemies, and settling into their seats. They command their vassals, and Karkat peers around him to see the jades, standing with their heads down against the wall behind him. He tries not to squirm as the crowd notices him, finally.

Luckily, in she walks. The Empress walks in slowly, with no fanfare, and falls into her throne with a sigh, clearly disinterested. He shifts a little, and resists the urge to move towards her. The room falls silent, and she sighs again, clicking on a little microphone attached to her slick rubber bodysuit, and he holds his breath.

“I hope at least one of you motherfuckers has somethin’ interesting going on for me.” She says, and there’s a low murmur through the crowd, like each is trying to decide if they’re interesting. “Someone hurry up and get up here. I’m bored.”

A clown stumbles up, all grins and horns and hair, and starts into something that Karkat can’t follow, even when he tries. Should he take notes? No, he isn’t some kind of advisor. He feels strange, only in the room for the sake of being seen, but there isn’t anything else he should be doing. In the mirror, the bruise was a badge, the bite proof that she wanted him, but here in this room, in front of a hundred or so trolls, he feels himself flushing, and then their stares are more intense. They whisper, ignoring the clown as much as he is, and he knows the news of the recruiting rally has spread to them.

He’s shaking. Keep it together, he has to be calm. He has to make sure she can take him places, or she won’t want to keep him, right? Right. He can do it. The clown finishes talking, and the Empress moves in her seat, thinking. This is good. She’ll say something, and he can focus on that instead.

“I don’t give a fuck about how many clowns you got signin’ up.” She says, finally, and then waves her hand over the side of her throne, at him, and Trinee runs up to drop a cushion beside her feet, and tells him with their eyes to move to it. He stands and walks to it, then kneels on it, just beside her, while she continues. “Until you got some news on those colonies, I don’t need you bulge jackin’ about your dumb-bass gods like they matter to me. Get out.”

The clown bows, and rushes out, and he allows himself to smile at the tittering that falls around the room. The Empress grabs the back of his neck and pulls him in against her leg, and then rests a hand on the top of his head fluffing his hair idly. Like a cat. He purrs. Another troll comes up, but he isn’t paying attention. He’s leaning against her, trying not to melt into her attentions, but the complaints the indigo has about something or other don’t interest him enough to bother focusing on anything else. They’ll be handled, just like everyone else, because the Empress is good at her job.

His knees kind of ache, with having to kneel on them, but it’s fine. He can stand it for her, and he won’t be sitting slouched and cross-legged in front of all these highbloods, in front of _her._ She deserves for him to look good, to try and look like a good pet for her. Her claws drag against his scalp and he’s purring, softly, only barely watching the indigo be lead off when she waves them away, unconcerned with their complaints.

Another troll. He pays even less attention. She smells good, and she’s playing with his hair, and he feels pretty, even under the scrutiny of so many trolls. They don’t matter, not as much as her. The pink mist is coming back, covering his pan, muting everything comfortably enough for him to close his eyes and not worry about seeming like a bad pet; she would want him comfortable. He’s still sitting upright, and she’s happy with him, or else she would have said something, or done something. She has nothing to lose, but since she hasn’t, he’s comfortable, sitting with his cheek pressed to her knee and her hand in his hair, being the best he can be.

The rest of court really goes this way. He keeps his eyes closed, purring softly and turning his face into her knee. She’s cold and it’s comforting to him, and he finds himself wishing he was sitting in her lap, with her cold thighs under him to cool his nook. It aches, and the position he’s sitting in doesn’t help, but he doesn’t dare move away from her hand, worrying somewhere in the back of his pan that he’ll be sent away if he moves away from her at all. And, beside that, he wouldn’t want to move away from her for even a second, even just to sit more comfortably. Her hand in his hair feels perfect, feels like approval.

“Aight. Any of you hunt down that clown I told you to?” She asks, after some period of time Karkat doesn’t even try to guess at, too busy with his cheek against the Empress’ leg and his hair gently mussed from her hands. He blinks out of his doze when she continues, and peeks up at her face. “Makara. I think his name’s Gamzee or somethin’. I want to find him before something eats his ass and make sure he can follow the current old bastard’s line, remember?” No one speaks. He glances out into the crowd, trying not to be noticable. Should he say anything? “Anyone?”

Finally, someone stands, and clears their throat, looking like they would rather be anywhere else than where they are right now. “N-no luck, your highness. We have yet to find him. But, uh, we have continued looking! We’re searching for him everywhere.” They say, smiling a tight, forced smile.

“You’re fucking worthless, then. Why do I bother? Incompetents. Fucking--” She pauses, and looks down at Karkat, who has gently placed his hand on her leg, his pusher thudding heavily in his throat while he tries to think of how to word it. “Yeah? What is it?”

He coughs, and speaks, just loud enough for her. “I, uh. I know Gamzee Makara. He’s my moirail.” He says, and in the long moments of silence after it he shifts on his pillow, too aware of all the eyes on him, of the way the Empress is watching him so closely. “I could. I could call him, if you liked, your highness.” He can only barely keep his voice above a whisper, his face burning up to his hairline and to the tips of his ears.

“Then we’re gonna have to get you a phone, huh, baby?” She purrs, stroking her hand down to the back of his neck. He purrs back at her, relaxing the tenseness in his shoulders that had gathered just in the little span of time between him speaking and her responding. He turns his face into her hand to kiss her wrist, and actually sits back on his heels. The Empress is leaned more forward, slouched to look at him more closely. “What a good little pet you are, even in ways I wasn’t expecting.” She kisses him, right there, and he chitters, his painted nails scraping against the fabric of his slacks. Turning back to the rest of the court, she continues. “You’ll be briefed if I need you huntin’ him down any more than my pet here can do for me. Unless you got somethin’ else to bring up, and unless it’s real fuckin’ good to come up behind y’all gettin’ fucking nothing done for a fish, get out.”

The court mutters, collectively, all again deciding if they have anything more to say, but Karkat only kind of hears. His ears are still ringing from her kiss, and then she leans down and he meets her more than halfway to kiss her back, his ears twitching. One or two of the trolls mutters about it, but he feels wanted, too happy with the attention to give any mind to them. She rewards him with a slow, gentle kiss, but even so it goes to his bulge, and that only aches. He doesn’t think he could manage getting a wiggly right now, physically or emotionally.

She sits back in her seat and scoffs, which seems to end the meeting, and he listens more than watches as they file out, chairs scraping on marble and pens clattering as everyone tries to collect their things fast enough not to get on her nerves. He leans his cheek back on her knee, for the moment, and she talks quickly to some aide of hers, not paying him any real mind besides actually remembering his name. He expected her to just call him the pet, and it makes his chest swell with pride that she remembered who he was besides her pet. She orders the aides to bring a husktop with Grype and not much else to his block, and to leave it on his vanity. He’ll call Gamzee later, when she’s finished with him for the night, and if he can get Gamzee to the palace, she’ll discuss giving him full internet access.

Exciting, that he’s allowed to call Gamzee. He’s had no time to really think about his moirail, and he’s worried Gamzee might disapprove of where he is, but if they can talk, it’ll be fine. Gamzee has only ever wanted what makes Karkat the happiest, so it’ll be fine. Especially if he’s allowed to visit. That would make Karkat beyond ecstatic, the love of his life and his Empress, both seeing him.

But that’s for later, he shouldn’t get ahead of himself. For now, he stands up behind her and ignores the soreness in his thighs and knees, and walks behind her as she sashays out. The jades follow a few paces behind him, quietly tittering between themselves about his next meal, and what he should wear tomorrow, and he follows the winding path the Empress takes to reach a room he has no proper description for, besides a hospital room.

It’s linoleum and tile, with a small, padded bed, but instead of the pale blue sheets usually spread on a hospital cot, it’s black, some kind of faux leather, and bolted to the floor. In the room is a violetblood with piercings through her eyebrows and the bridge of her nose, sitting on a stool in the corner and flipping through a magazine. She looks up and then stands and bows when the Empress enters, before looking him over closely. He feels like she’s taking stock of him, and does his best not to squirm. The jades stay outside the door, and it slides closed in front of Trinee’s face, which is lowered.

He tries not to worry, but it’s hard. After a second, the Empress sits on the cot, and pats the spot beside her for him to climb up, and he does. She pets at his hair, and smiles at him, and then turns her full attention to the violet.

“You’ll watch me do this, but you’re not touchin’ him. Right?” She says, and he knows it’s for his benefit, it makes him feel cherished. The violet nods, pulling on some black latex gloves and then handing the Empress some for herself, which she manages to put on without ripping her claws through, and he’s impressed by that. “Good. Take your shirt off, baby.”

It takes a second for her words to register, and then he strips, as quickly as he can, to the waist, and manages to rip a button off his shirt. He wonders if the jades will bring him a new one, and then what she would need him shirtless for. The violet looks at the scratches and marks on him, and he flushes, but watches the Empress instead; the violet doesn’t matter, not nearly as much as his Empress, who is holding a short, sharp needle. He feels cold. His throat hurts. She purrs, and strokes his cheek, but the glove makes it uncomfortable.

“Don’t shake, little thing, I’m only marking you. That way I never gotta worry about losing you.” She coos, all soft. The violet hands her a hollow tube, but then takes both back after a look from the Empress, and replaces them with a sickeningly menthol-stinking rag, and the Empress pushes Karkat onto his side. “Lay down. This will make you numb.”

It stings his gills from a distance, but when she pulls them apart and rubs one up and down, it starts going numb immediately. He coughs, softly, and she mumbles something like “that’s enough”, and he goes still. Calm. He has to be calm. This is fine. He can’t feel his gill. He closes his eyes, and tries to block out the violet instructing her, and the distant, detached feeling of something probing around the edge of his gill. The numbness isn’t complete, doesn’t permeate all the way through to the muscle.

He grips his shirts, forcing himself to breathe calmly, grits his teeth. Just don’t think about it. He can do that. Plan what he’ll say to Gamzee, that should keep him occupied.

It makes a pop. A little, but audible, pop. The needle slides through his gill fast and smooth straight into the metal tube, and she leaves it there for a few seconds. It aches. It’s still distant, but it does ache, it hurts and he tries not to breathe because of it, which only makes him pant when he can’t hold in his little, weak sobs back anymore, and it aches more. He presses the shirts into his face, against his eyes, while the Empress tells him to relax, to calm down. The needle slides out, he feels it against his skin, and then there’s a barely-there little ache of something in the hole it left behind.

“All done, precious.” The Empress coos, and he uncovers his eyes to look at her, ignoring the violet shooting out of the block as soon as the door opens. She opens her arms to him, and he sits up, careful of the little ache, and then wraps himself around her, whimpering softly. She kisses the top of his head. “I know, it hurt. But you did it. You’re all mine, forever, baby. All mine. And you know what? That means you get a reward, for being so good for mommy.”

He blinks, and wipes his face.

“Call me Meenah. You get to call me that, and no one else. Because you’re special.” She purrs, kissing him slowly. “Now you go on back to your room for me. Your jades will take care of you. Don’t touch that ring.”

He nods to each thing, but takes just a few seconds too long to release her, and she pauses to kiss him again, more deeply, and when she does finally pull away, he feels distant, floaty, the ache in his side building quickly as the short term anesthetic wears off, and he watches her leave with low, needy whines in his throat. It takes only a second for the jades to take her place, the three whose names he doesn’t remember cleaning his face and carefully sanitizing his gill and Trinee smoothing his hair.

“Be calm. You’ll heal. We have a new shirt for you, and then we’re taking you to your block, and you can contact the clown for the Empress. And after that, you have nothing left to do but rest. We will get you when you’re called for. After some time, we’ll show you how to get around the palace. You’re not allowed to see the gardens, not until you heal.” They say, petting his face and letting him lean into their chest. The others pull a loose shirt over his shoulders, and Trinee buttons it for him, and then he’s hoisted back to his feet. “Come, master. It’s time to go.”

The walk back to his block is scenic. He stares at the guards, the tapestries, the decorations painstakingly arranged and cleaned, the last thing Trinee said sinking in. Master? He could never imagine being called that, even in a weird sex fantasy. It isn’t something related to him, to being a mutant.

And no one has called him that, either. He’s been here for a while, and even in the court, when the highblood were muttering about him, no one called him a mutant. Maybe he is special. He must be, he must be important here, for Trinee of all trolls to call him _master._

His block, as promised, has a small black husktop sitting on his vanity. Trinee encourages him to eat first, and then coaches him on what he might say; tells him to ask Gamzee to visit. Tells him Gamzee needs to come to him, or they can’t see each other, and that Gamzee isn’t in any trouble.

Quiche for brunch, cheese and eggs and bacon, and he takes his time eating, maybe even more than before, resisting the urge to touch at the piercing under his shirt. He’s not supposed to mess with it, even though it kind of itches, the way a scab would. Hopefully it doesn’t get infected, like most of his injuries do.

Grype loads up, lets him log in, and he immediately dials Gamzee, who pops from idle to online, and answers. He’s sitting in his block, half dressed, and grins.

“Redpop! Baby, where’ve you been? Motherfucker’s been achin’ missin’ your sweet face all on mine screens.” He coos, and Karkat chirps at him, wishing he could hold Gamzee’s hand. “That ain’t your block, is it?”

Time to explain, explain the whole situation. At least Gamzee will have to listen, because Karkat knows for certain that he lives a good distance away from the palace city, so he’ll have time to cool off if he gets angry.

“Hi, Gamzee. I love you so much, you fucking moron. Why would I leave without warning?” He ignores that he had planned that, what with the whole ‘probably dying at the recruitment rally’ thing. “I need you to listen to me closely, okay? I know I worried you, but just listen. Got it?”


	2. The Deal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gamzee makes a deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how to format for pesterlogs or whatever so fuck me ig. here it is!

When Karkat told him, Gamzee was incredibly understanding. Because Gamzee was always incredibly understanding, he was always the kind of troll you could say anything to and have him understand, have him at least try to understand. Even if that thing was that you had been put into the Empress’ personal service as an attendant, and that that title was, at best, a misnomer. Karkat told him everything, every detail he could imagine his moirail asking for, and he said he understood.

It was a long conversation, and he wished it was over audio, but he needed to get it typed out first before Gamzee could cut him off and respond, so he typed it out, slowly, picking his words carefully. He explained that he was safe. He lived there in the palace, with the Empress, and he was safe. He was even happy! She loved him, and he loved her even more than she could him.

Instead of getting angry, like Karkat had been worried he might, angry that he let himself be taken or angry that Gamzee himself couldn’t stop it from happening, or any other kind of thing, he just asked questions. He didn’t get angry, which is a response highbloods have so much that the concern is a response Karkat has even when asking for something simple. He didn’t get angry at Karkat or even the Empress, which was surprising in itself.

The first thing he asked was, _when can I come get you?_ And even when Karkat told him that he was going to stay, Gamzee didn’t get mad. He just changed his question.

_Can I come see you?_

It was such a simple question that it actually caught him off-guard; he was so prepared for all the harder questions, the why (because she loved him) and the how (because he was being an idiot and she saved him and he loved her so much, desperately) and all of that, but just asking that like nothing else mattered? That stalled out his hands for a few seconds, and he stared at the purple text while he tried to make his pan fucking work. Why wouldn’t he be allowed to? Why would that be the question, if he could? Why was Karkat still wondering?

_Of course you can, Gamzee. I want to see you, too. I miss you._

Of course Gamzee could come see him. The Empress loved Karkat, it would be ridiculous for her to want him not to see his palemate. And, Gamzee was her choice for the next highblood, which only made it easier. She would want him around, clearly.

He talked to Gamzee, nightly, for a wipe. There was so much to discuss, and Gamzee had so many questions about the Empress, about Condy. What she was like, what it felt like with her, how Karkat was getting on with his jades. He had to think about how to talk to her about Gamzee, but it was fine. She saw him a few times, but mostly, he stayed in his room, keeping himself busy with trying to learn how to do his own makeup to be a little more useful, or at least to keep from staring at vapid dramas on his clamtop all night, wondering about Gamzee while he worked and couldn’t chat.

All he had to do was suggest it to her, and she would be all for the idea, surely. So he had to wait. Trinee had told him he could wander, but there wasn’t a lot to see, and he felt weird walking through the palace alone, so he waited until the jades came in after an hour to look in on him, all rustling in their long gowns and speaking softly to each other as they poked and prodded him, and looked at his still-fresh piercing.

“Trinee?” He lifted his hands and they took them, gently. “I have to talk to the Empress, I need to tell her something important. Can I see her?”

Trinee looked thoughtful, checking his claws and pinching the backs of his hands for some reason before handing him a bottle of water to drink. “I don’t know, Karkat. I’m not allowed to suggest something like that. She’ll come to see you before too long, and you can talk to her. There’s going to be court again tomorrow to speak, as well.” They pushed his shirt up and looked at his chest closely, the thin scratches and large, blackish-red bruises across his hips and sides. “I’m sure you’ll be able to tell her then.”

He nodded, hissing when Trinee and the other jades poured a cold, tingling ointment on his chest and began to rub it in, even their gentle hands agitating his bruises. That made sense. He wanted to see Gamzee, needed to. So much had happened, and when he considered somehow being told that he couldn’t it made his throat feel like it was closing, like he couldn’t breathe.

“I talked to Gamzee. He’s my moirail. My soulmate. I want to see him, and she wants him to be the next highblood, so it’s fine. But I just want to see him. I need to talk to him, about all of this. It’s so much, and so fucking terrifying, there’s so much happening and I never even thought I could have a flushmate, let alone that I would be the Empress’ quad. I thought she’d kill me right there when she found me.” He rambled, and blinked away a few tears he couldn’t seem to help. He must have been even more sentimental than he thought. “I miss him so much, Trinee. And my other friends, but they’re not Gamzee.”

Trinee nodded, though he couldn’t tell if they were listening. “We’re going to leave. Get some sleep before she calls on you again, okay? You’ll be too tired to tell her what you need to.” They sounded strained, and kissed his forehead, just softly, and he felt like he could stay with them forever if he had the chance.

As soon as they closed the door behind themselves, the lock clicking into place reassuringly, he opened his clamtop and looked at Gamzee’s message box, thinking about everything he needed to say to him, how Gamzee would love Trinee because they’re so soft and how he needs to pet Gamzee’s hair, and all the things he left at his apartment, including the painting Gamzee did of Karkat the first time they met in person. He almost forgot about it, and felt guilty. Eventually he settled on what to say, but Gamzee’s icon went back from idle to trolled again before he was even finished typing, and he had to respond.

_I’m comin’ to see you, rosebud. Few nights from now, kay? Be good._

He felt the wind leave him. _Always, Gamzee. I’m so excited._

Be good. He could do that. Gamzee always said “be good” to mean “be well”, to stay healthy and keep himself safe. He could do that; this was the safest place he’d ever been. Even if he missed the Empress terribly, and kept finding himself trying to fiddle with the piercing she’d given him. It ached, and he was full of a kind of nervous energy that made it hard to think, and harder not to. Sleep, he needed to sleep, that’s all he had to do.

And so, after a long while of fighting with his overactive pan and flipping over and over in bed, he did, into a dreamless, listless sleep.

Karkat’s back and hips were sore when he woke up, his head heavy and full of cotton, and his eyes felt like they were glued shut. Trinee and the others came in, lifting him up from the bed with hands under his arms and arms around his back, and lead him to the bathroom. They washed him, cleaned his piercing, combed and conditioned his hair, and let him lay against them fully while they did, all cooing gently. They were soft, rounded out like most jades were, and wonderfully cool when they blotted on his makeup with their fingertips. He should have hated being treated like a doll, but it was relaxing; they knew what to dress him in, and all he had to do was let them.

And he’d be seeing the Empress soon, which made everything tolerable. He needed to see her, desperately, not just to talk about Gamzee but because since the last time she touched him he felt such a deep, empty pit in his gut that he just couldn’t seem to shake off, and when he thought of her he had that same heart-pounding and cold feeling wash over him as he did talking to Gamzee, that same excitement. He needed to see her, he had to see her, he had to touch her and know she was real and she loved him as much as he loved her. Just like with Gamzee.

The fact that it never felt so intense and required before wasn’t off-putting, he just knew it was real! That he loved her so much, so desperately, was good. It was real, not like when he thought he loved Terezi because she was friendly, this was different. It hurt to be away from the Empress. From Condy.

His Condy. She said he could call her that, and that’s how he knew he was as special to her as she was to him, because he had a nickname for her and she didn’t let just anyone use one. That, and the constant, inside-hollowing need to be near her were proof enough that she was perfect for him, that he was in the right place making the right decision. His need was all the proof anyone could ask for, but he wasn’t sure why anyone would. Surely they could tell how much Condy meant to him just by looking at him.

The jades combed his hair, slowly, careful not to pull it as they smooth it into place, using some softly scented oil or water to keep it from springing back until they’ve finished styling it. They lift his chin and dab something cool and sticky onto his throat, his shoulders. They smear it down his front where her claws left pinprick drags from his sternum to his stomach. He almost feels asleep, lulled by their soft, similar voices (did all jades sound this way? Did they all sound so soft and warm and distant?) and their cool, gentle hands to a point of limpness. He had bathed before, so they only needed to dress him, and they did so with the same care as ever; real clothes, a shirt and pants and socks and shoes.

Karkat wanted to argue that he could dress himself, could at least put his shoes on, but something about them moving him so surely made him not want to interrupt; they knew what they were doing better than him, clearly. Once dressed, all his buttons done, his claws were checked for growth; still short and dull, but repainted to a more lustrous fuchsia than before. It made him feel special, close to Condy because he was allowed to wear her color so boldly, on all his fingers, like he had all her quads at once.

Trinee rolled a thin paper sheet over his shoulders, and then held his chin firmly. For an instant, he wondered if they would kiss him, and then they began painting on his make up, carefully, his eyes and lips made to look bigger, softer, more inviting. It smelled like sugar and blood, like real, expensive make up, and he felt _good._ He was important. He was special. He couldn’t wait to see Condy, for her to put her hand in his hair and tell him how pretty he was.

Even so, when he was finally fully prepared and dressed, it was too soon. The jades all stopped touching him, and only herded him out of his room and into the hallway, heading down the same path as before; past the room where he got his gill pierced, past handfuls of indigos and ceruleans in armor and stuffy collared shirts, past expensive artwork made of glass and horns and bones. It felt like forever, his nerves all burned needing to be closer to Condy, and needing it yesterday, now, constantly. Like air, like moonlight.

Was he allowed to go outside? Trinee nodded, a clipped nod that told him not to talk anymore, and he tried to listen to their nonverbal advice, but it was important. “When? Can I garden or anything? Can I leave the palace? Will you come with me?” His voice pitches up as he talks, and he almost sounds hysterical for some reason, his pusher skips a beat and he can’t feel his lungs inflate until they look and they aren’t looking at him, they’re staring ahead, and he’s so scared that they can’t hear him, that he isn’t making noise or he doesn’t exist, he reaches out to grab Trinee’s arm.

They start to turn when his fingers just brush their robe, and then stumble to press against the wall, and they’re replaced by her, by his Condy.

“Hey baby-kat. Look at you, all prettied up for me. What a good pet.” She coos, holding his cheeks and lifting his head to kiss him. He shivers and can’t even move his hands to react, but he feels so suddenly and completely calm that he can’t even really worry about it. “You’re keeping me company for court again. I wanna show off my pretty little redblood. Make everyone all jealous of me.”

Karkat nodded dumbly, all his concerns with leaving the palace gone. Why would he want to leave, when being with her made his head feel so fuzzy and the rest of him feel so calm? He wanted to just be calm with her forever. He wanted to keep touching her, or being touched by her, constantly, all the time. He didn’t want to be away from her for any amount of time, he couldn’t stand it.

And then she was moving away, and he had to follow with a dumb look on his face. “Yes. I missed you, Empress.” It felt like he shouldn’t call her the nickname when other people could hear, like he might not be allowed to use it anymore if it wasn’t special, wasn’t just a secret between them. He wanted to keep feeling special, being her special pet. Special person.

She didn’t hold his hand as they walked into the main hall, and walked a few paces ahead of him, and he made sure not to walk too close and step on the silky strands of hair trailing along behind her on the floor, like a cape she grew herself. She was majestic, and he wasn’t even aware of the jades until Trinee returned to their place ahead of him and blocked his view of her, and he realized they were inside the main hall, just feet from Condy’s throne. The hall was empty, like before, except for jade and lower maids and secretaries, and only about five of them. The sounds of Condy’s sure footsteps clicked against the marble floor as she walked to her throne, and she sat without even looking to watch her own group of jades pull her hair out of the way for her.

She was amazing, and he loved her desperately. Trying to mirror her, Karkat walked to the foot of the throne and started to kneel, but stalled as he checked to make sure that the pillow he needed was placed under him; he didn’t have Condy’s easy grace, as much as he wished he did, as desperately as he wanted it. Still, he settled on the pink and gold pillow, and lifted his chin so she could kiss him as the highbloods began filing through the main entrance to their sectioned seats.

Unlike before, almost half of the crowd was clowns, many of them several feet taller than the average violet they walked past, all of them covered in paint and blood and carrying their weapons, making the guards shifty and nervous and making him tense with anticipation. Gamzee must be here, right? That was the only explanation for there being so many clowns so suddenly. He was too excited, he could barely breathe as he scanned the heads of the crowd for Gamzee’s horns, for the unruly hair he spent so many hours brushing and the lanky body underneath it that cradled him like he was made of glass.

“Aight, let’s get this shit going. I’m gonna be stuck fuckin’ with these damn carnies for a long cod damn time already, I wanna speed this up.” Condy spoke, and the murmuring that echoed into a cacophony in the hall died down. Carnies, he knew, was one of the most unkind terms for clowns, for members of the church, reducing them to festivities and their hope for the Dark Carnival to revive their souls into everlasting good vibes. He flinched when she said it, and she put a hand in his hair comfortingly. “First off, violets. I’m not trifling with any orphaner talk, you’d better fuckin’ have somethin’ worthwhile to say.”

He shivered, and she scratched his horns, not entirely pleasantly. Three violets stood from their seats and shuffled to stand before her, all of them dressed like they were planning on a party, but he assumed all violets always looked that way. They had gold in cracks and scratches in their horns, and he marveled over their battle scars being so highly decorated. Like badges of honor, even more than the actual badges on their dress coats.

“Empress. We understand your position on this, but we really need you to reconsider our proposal. If you remember, we’re all decorated, and I was nearly a major before I was pulled.” Said the one with the worst cracks, and a long, ragged scar across his face that pulled his mouth to one side and made him speak with a strained lisp. “We were only minorly injured and made a--”

Condy laughed, then, meanly, interrupting him before he could finish, and Karkat peered up at her curiously, wonderingly. She pet his hair, and he leaned on her knee until she pushed him back. “You look like you tried to kiss a fuckin’ belt-sander, how’s that minorly injured? Look in a cod damn mirror some night and tell me you really think you’re the face I want in my ads.” She said, laughing more when she finished, and Karkat felt sick, something sticky and wet at the back of his throat.

And then it was gone, and she was looking right at him, with her warm fuchsia eyes and her soft lips and her perfect face. He felt fine. He could barely remember not feeling good, feeling safe with her hand in his hair, leaning his cheek against the side of her throne and purring softly. She was right, a scar like that would only scare off violets from wanting to join in, and what if he had some pan injury that made him unsafe to fly? It was just safer for him to be grounded, safer for Condy and safer for the future of the fleet. It made sense. She was right, like always.

“I-it’s only a cosmetic deficit, Empress. I can do so much more than kill animals.” He said, stressing his words while he tried not to lisp them and failed. The other two agreed with him, but neither of them seemed as bad off as he was; maybe they were just his friends, Karkat figured, through the soft pink fog in his pan. “Please. We all can.”

She sighed, deeply, and sat forward in her throne to glare down at him more directly, which made her hand have to leave Karkat’s hair, and he whimpered. “Are you implying that I don’t know what’s best for my fucking planet, captain?” The way she stated his rank made it feel like an insult to him, made him seem like an insect she was about to crush, and made the three violets shrink back from where they stood, their fins folding down submissively. “Fine. You two, with the normal faces? Go back on a ship. I don’t care. Belt sander, you can handle being _the_ orphaner, can’t you?” Her lips were smiling, but when Karkat peeked up at her, it was just to show her teeth.

The captain nodded stiffly, and turned to walk all the way out of the hall, out the grand doors, while his allies returned to their places in the audience, fighting smiles. They got what they wanted, after all. It only made sense for them to be happy. He chirruped when Condy sat back, her hand sliding into his hair again, and her face went back to it’s placid, beautiful, Empress-worthy serenity. She was stunning. He almost missed her calling the blue-bloods before the clowns for it, but managed to turn his head in time to see the clowns collectively shifting in their seats.

The indigo that came forward, alone at first but trailed by a handful of rusts, knelt several feet farther back than the violets had stood, and had to raise her voice to be heard. “Empress, I was called to report on the findings of the most recent survey team to planet 66849, section 2-A-4, B.” She seemed to have this memorized, and didn’t lift her head, her cropped hair dripping with blue sweat. “W-we have found that the planet is endemic with troll-like creatures of much lower intelligence, who have yet to develop tools beyond basic stone weaponry.” Condy tapped her foot three times, and the indigo twitched, her hand curling at her hip for a weapon she wasn’t allowed to bring in. “We only need your orders, my Empress.”

Karkat plucked at the hem of his shirt, some soft, cottony thing that only obscured his grubscars in the light, didn’t cover them. He wasn’t yet used to being seen, and he felt the eyes of the clowns and the violets from before in the crowd on him, looking at the new addition to the Empress’ collection of rarities. He was special, though. He was here, in court, and the others were on shelves or in some dusty museum. He was the special one.

“You came all this way for that? Ain’t you got a fuckin’ dataslab, or are you just not able to read, cobalt?” She asked, that same angry smile on her lips. He didn’t look, but he heard it, and her hand tightened into a fist as the blueblood twitched again, all the rusts behind her looking between each other for just an instant before returning their eyes to the floor. She pulled his hair, and he bit his bottom lip to stifle the whimper, somehow knowing not to break the uneasy silence before Condy did. “You could have just told me that in a transmission.”

The blue nodded sharply. “O-of course, your highness, I was following the most recent orders sent to us, which were to return w-w-with any info-fo-formation. Information. For direct reporting.” She was shaking, enough that even Karkat could see it through the gentle haze of Condy’s perfume surrounding his pan in pink light.

“I changed my mind.” She said, simply. “Just now. You shoulda sent me a transmission before you came. Wastin’ my fuckin’ time on you when I have much better shit to be talking about, shit that actually matters. Why do I give a fuck about some dumb bass pre-metal society of nontrolls? Kill ‘em, and then harvest whatever’s worthwhile.”

Now, the blueblood looked up, her eyes wide. “N-Empress, you, we could study them for sweeps, for generations. We could learn so much. They aren’t even aware of us yet, we could learn so much from them simply by not interfering with the process of development. Preliminary visual studies indicate an almost identical system to ours, but they don’t have a mothergrub.”

The crowd, collectively, started speaking, at that. How could they breed? Were they able to carry their own eggs? That made no sense, that couldn’t be possible. Only animals had their own young, the proxy was what elevated trolls above beasts. The murmuring was loud, until everyone seemed to be shouting over each other, and Condy’s fist in Karkat’s hair became painful to the point that he couldn’t help but whine, his hands clasped on his knees to keep from touching her without permission.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, baby. I wasn’t even thinking.” She cooed, loosening her grip and tilting his chin up to look at him more closely. “You poor li’l thing, being so strong for mommy.” He leaned into her hand, pouting now to get more attention, and she pet his cheek. Without looking away from him, she spoke to the blueblood again, her tone still cotton-candy soft and sweet. “If I wanted to know how they fucked, I’d have asked, cobalt. I gave you your orders, and you’ve got three seconds before I get annoyed at you for making me hurt my toy.”

He felt dizzy, just softly, like he dozed off in a scuttlebuggy and woke up while it was still moving, when Condy turned away from him, and the perfect fuchsia glow of her eyes faded away. He missed it, but he leaned on the throne again, and she pet his hair again, and it was all perfect. His head hurt, but she didn’t mean it, it was the blue’s fault for speaking out of line. Condy would never hurt him, he knew that. The idea itself was insane; she loved him, she could never hurt him.

The blueblood’s voice cracked. “Of course, Empress. I apologize for… I apologize. I’ll report back to my ship immediately.” She stood, and looked up, but not at Condy, over her shoulder, at the wall behind the throne. “Thank you for seeing me for such a trivial issue. I will be sure not to waste your time again.” The blueblood saluted, and about-faced to walk to the smaller, more subtle exit, followed by the herd of rusts.

Without her and her group, the hall felt somewhat empty, though the clowns took up as much space as, usually, at least two trolls. Before Condy even invited them to speak, two of the older ones, with sagging skin and gnarled horns, were stomping down the stairs to the center of the hall, one holding an old book and the other grimacing like they were smelling something nasty. Despite the visual signs of their age, they both kneeled and stood up quickly, showing only the barest amount of respect for their stations in relation to hers.

“Empress. We need to discuss you seeking out a new highblood.” The one with the sour face said, rubbing their hands together. “As you know, this is a church matter. The current highblood is supposed to choose a successor, train them, and when they’re ready, the successor kills their mentor to take their place and their power. It isn’t something for _outsiders_ to interfere in.”

The one with the book lifted her head, then, from where she seemed to be studying the cover. “The simple matter, Empress, is that no one but the highblood may choose a successor.” There were a handful of _whoop-whoops_ from the crowd, but the old troll waved her hand to silence them. “It simply doesn’t work that way. We are fully willing and intending on meeting this Makara, but you cannot decide that he will take the place of our current highblood, bloodline connection or not.” Karkat felt electric, hearing Gamzee’s surname for certain. He wasn’t here? Where was he, shouldn’t he be here? It seemed important, like something the new highblood should be seeing.

“I got him comin’ in later, hang around and meet him.” Condy said, calm. “And I got a deal struck with the old Makara. He owes me some favors, and I’m callin’ in a big one with this, but I know he’s gonna train this dumb bass li’l whelp up right and get him set to do your rituals and shit. He knows better than to let me down when I ask for something.”

He was coming _soon._ Karkat felt dizzy, and shook Condy’s leg without thinking, looking up at her so excited it hurt. “Gamzee’s coming tonight? Is he going to have time after he sees you to see me? No, can he stay? I want to see him so much, Condy.” He babbled, almost bouncing in place, and felt his throat get tight just thinking about his palest love, his moonlight lover, _his_ Gamzee.

“Did I ask you?” She snapped, looking at Karkat with her decorated fins flared, her eyes narrow and cold, and he shuddered. “I didn’t tell you to speak, baby, because I know what I’m doin’. He’s here to work. You’re mine now, you don’t have quads anymore.” The clowns in the crowd shifted again, chairs squeaking against the floor. Quads, he remembered, were one of the most important things in a clown’s life; not just for love, but for spiritual completion, their quads being the other parts of their soul that would journey with them into the carnival. “And you don’t call me that until I say you can.”

He felt cold, and sick. The soft, pinkish connection he seemed to have with her was gone, and he was alone, kneeling on a thin pillow on a cold stone floor, surrounded by strangers who could see his mutation for what it was, dressed to show his color off, with his claws dulled, painted, made to be safe. He couldn’t protect himself. He didn’t even have pockets, and he smelled like candy, because the makeup on his face was real, to please the Empress.

“If you wanna see him, Karkat.” She drawled, and he slowly felt less cold, less exposed as she turned his head back from staring terrified at the crowd to look at her, distracting. “I can see what I can do. It might help. We’ll see, huh? I just don’t wanna share such a cute little thing like you, baby.” She cooed, and he felt warm again, pillowed in pink, her hands on him firm but kind. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to crawl into her lap and make her love him more. “But you gotta be quiet.”

Karkat nodded dumbly, and leaned himself on the throne again, watching the clowns all shift, the oldest ones clenching and unclenching their jaws and their fists. Everything seemed pinker, rosy with the warmth of love in his chest and pan, blooming outward like a lotus flower and covering up the concerns he had. So what if they saw his gills, his grubscars? He was Condy’s, even if they thought he was disgusting, they couldn’t touch him, she would never let them. He was safe with her, and comfortable, and their strange, guarded looks between each other were meaningless as long as he had the love he had with her. The love he had the instant he saw her, the instant she saw him.

She continued in her beautiful, clear voice, her hand in his hair and scratching at his horns. “If any of you wanna stick around and see him, talk to the guards. They’ll decide if you’re not gonna be in the way. Until then, you got any other complaints?” Her face was placid as moonlight, smooth like a mirror. Karkat was in love with her, more than he had ever loved anyone flush in his life, more than he had ever dreamed he could love anyone flush.

“J-just concerns, Highness. We’re planning a festival, and if the Highblood is busy training, well, he won’t be able to come.” The older one said, and there was an uproar in the small crowd of clowns. Karkat suddenly couldn’t remember what month it was, and so what festival they would be planning. It was important, he knew that. Should Gamzee-- “And the younger Makara, if he’s being pulled away, will he return in time for it? It’s necessary that all clowns attend. It’s so important for the young ones. Do you have any idea how long he might be indisposed? There’s planning to do around it, we just have to know sooner rather than later. Y-your grace, if you please.”

He wanted to ask, too, and ask what day it was, ask where exactly they were. His room had no windows, he hadn’t been outside since before he got there. Time moved so differently when you weren’t aware of it; he’d programmed for weeks straight before and just never noticed because it was always the same amount of dark in his little shitty apartment, with blankets over all the windows and a stockpile of microwave-ready foods. He hadn’t noticed the time passing until he unmuted Trollian and saw all the pings.

So it wasn’t surprising, with all the things he had to get used to taking up all his thoughts, that he would be behind on the date. He would ask later, he didn’t want to interrupt her, especially when she looked down at him with her warm pink eyes and it was hard to even keep his own open. It would be fine.

“I dunno. It’ll probably be fine. If it ain’t you gotta take it up with the big bitch himself, I’m not his motherfuckin’ lusus. Much as he might think he needs me to be, he can make some decisions without any help from me. I’ve even seen him tie his own shoes.” As she went on, the clowns became more and more restless, muttering to each other and casting sharp glares in her direction, but she didn’t react, her face stony and beautiful as she stared out over the crowd like they weren’t even there. She could be an actress, she was amazing, he loved her desperately and had to stop himself from wrapping a hand around her ankle to prove she was really there with him. “So I’m not gonna hang out with all y’all just to show off the baby clown. You’ll be seeing him soon, I just gotta see him first.”

The clowns collectively seemed to be talking, each looking at each other and speaking over themselves. He couldn’t understand what they were all saying, or why they were all so upset. Gamzee would be a great Highblood! He was kind and sweet and cared about nothing more than the church. He would be perfect! Gamzee was a wonderful clown, it was his life! He didn’t care about anything more than the church, that’s what mattered most, right? Karkat couldn’t tell the consensus from where he sat, everyone speaking on top of each other and making it hard to follow a single conversation, as well as a handful of the elders falling into chants and prayers as though the apocalypse had come upon them. His mind wandered.

Despite Karkat trying his hardest to stay aware, to follow the conversations going on around him and what Condy was doing beside him, he felt himself slipping almost to sleep, drowsing against her leg and leaning against her more heavily. The noise of the crowd of clowns melted together into cotton-candy pink, sugary, none of them having Gamzee’s soft, smoky voice. None of them are saying anything useful, anything that Condy agreed with or about where Gamzee was and when Karkat could finally see him again. As the conversations seemed to drag on and on, and Condy’s hand got restless in his hair, he felt even more sleepy than before.

There’s no reason for him to stay awake, he thought He could just go to sleep now and be fine. His eyelids were too heavy to fight, and the cold hand in his hair was almost, almost close enough to his palemate’s to trick him into a lull. Sleep comes dark and deep and sudden, overwhelming any conscious thought he had left with tendrils of mushy memory digging themselves out of his mind. The first time he met Gamzee, the movies they watched together. Fishing together, and Gamzee marveling at the tiny miracle of his mutated gills, holding him like he was spun glass. All the practice it took to figure out how to properly care for Gamzee’s hair, the daymares, the way he never seemed to stop looking out to sea.

Terezi, Eridan, Sollux, all of them had been important, deeply, to him, but none of them were his palemate; they had chances at it, but none of them took the offer, scared off by hemoanon and his lack of charisma. Gamzee was a central pillar in his life.

He woke up suddenly, blinking in the low, gauzy light of his room, feeling somehow cold despite the heater working in the corner, like in most rooms Condy spent time in. His hands were each held up by a different jade, and one combed his hair into submission. His clothes had been changed again.

“How long was I asleep?” He asked, looking for some evidence of time even passing at all in the room. “Where is she?”

For a few long seconds, none of them spoke, too busy rubbing scented lotion into his skin and smoothing his hair down. And then, finally, one answered. “Only an hour. You were up late talking on your husktop, so she wanted to let you rest a while. She’ll be back soon.” It wasn’t one he recognized, or at least remembered. They all seemed to look the same to him, even knowing that they looked drastically different depending on which one he focused on. It was as though something was blocking the information from settling in his pan.

His dream felt fuzzy at the edges already, and he frowned, trying to remember the details. They seemed so important before he woke up. The new clothes he had on were silky, again, smooth and cold to the touch, edged with metal threads, and a thick, gold-plated collar on his throat. As he was sat up by the jade behind him, he felt the chain connecting the collar to his gill stud shift and jingle, placing a not unpleasant weight on the piercing once he was upright. They primped him some more, and as he finished waking up, the same, familiar excitement as before settled into his stomach, the excitement of being chosen.

She wanted _him,_ she picked _him,_ he was the special one. She only had him, and he had her, and he was special to her. He loved her deeply, so much he couldn’t imagine how he survived before he could love her in person. Condy had him pierced because she loved him. She wanted to be a part of him, permanent and solid, even better than a scar or a tattoo. By the time the jades had finally finished decorating him and left, he was staring at her door and struggling not to bounce and move the chain, his dulled, pink-painted claws curled in the cushiony comforter.

He needed to see her. She was everything.

And Condy entered the room like the second coming, lit from behind and naked, her hair spilling around her body and her arms stretched above her head. She looked like the kind of thing people made poems about, or paintings, or religions, and he slid off the platform and onto the floor to kneel instinctively.

“Aren’t you so eager just after wakin’ up, guppy?” She crooned, curling a finger to encourage him to crawl forward. “What a good angelfish, Karkat. Did you miss mommy?”

He nodded, dumb, and kissed her ankle, shivering. Pink, he felt pink, he felt drowned in it, soaked through to his bones with pink. It fogged into his pan and made him feel warm, made his mouth water and his skin tingle. He kissed her calf, her knee. She smelled like blood, and sugar, and saltwater, she tasted like saltwater alone, he had no idea what he was doing but he knew he wanted to do it more than anything, keep kissing up from her knee, up her thigh and towards her pink-flushed sheathe, balancing on his knees with his hands held against his thighs. He wanted to keep touching her, to taste her and make part of her a part of him, or even to become part of her.

Condy was so perfect herself, he wanted some of her perfection to seep into himself.

Everything felt distant and fuzzy, her cold skin under his mouth and the dull ache in his knees from balancing on them, the taste of her, the vague chill in the room, the silk against his skin as he moved closer towards her sheathe. His ankles crossed, and she lifted his hands to her hips to keep him from falling over, purring at him, and he dragged his tongue slowly over her sheatheslit. There was nothing to describe it; he wasn’t even nervous, though he had no experience with this. He was so calm he almost didn’t feel himself getting wet and how the silk stuck to his skin and thighs and made him feel sticky. Maybe Condy had just come in from a swim, and that’s why she tasted like saltwater, he thought. She groaned, and praised him, and he shuddered down his back, his nook feeling suddenly empty.

She was gorgeous, even from this low angle, her skin tinted that same drowning pink as what flooded his pan when he saw her, that feeling of warmth and completion, of being perfect, like she was suffused with perfection herself. He loved her more every time he blinked open his eyes to look at her, his mouth opened wide to catch one of her bulges as they slithered out of her sheathe. He would choke, he couldn’t breathe already, but he wanted more of her, he wanted to be filled, he wanted--

“Don’t do that, grubby.” Condy cooed, pulling him back just short of harshly from her bulges and forcing him to realize how much he needed to breathe. “Stay focused for mommy. Can’t have you passing out, that wouldn’t be fun.”

He wanted to say that even if he passed out, she could do whatever she wanted. Instead, he nodded dumbly, his mouth sticky with her pre. “Yes, mommy. Yeah. I’ll do better.” His voice swam in his ears, but hers was clear, sharp as a bell. He nodded again. “I’ll do better for you.”

Condy’s eyes above him had a faint glow, and he accepted it as it was. She was radiant, after all, it made sense that she would glow for real sometimes. She smiled, all her sharp teeth on display, and he felt his nook clench again. “Good boy, Karkat. You’re making mommy so happy. Try again, just be careful this time.” As she cooed at him, she released her stinging hold in his hair and let him lean forward again to press his open mouth against the underside of one of them.

The others slid over his cheek, sticky and cold, and he moaned, knowing somehow without her speaking that he was allowed to use his hands then to control them. He closed his eyes as he moved them, wrapping his hands around the tips and stroking down, pushing them away from his face, and lifted himself just enough to lead the one into his mouth. It twisted around his tongue and he almost gagged, but it pressed further, towards his throat. Consciously, he relaxed. His jaw, then his tongue, then his throat, letting her take more and more of him until his nose was nestled against the bases of her other bulges, his hands shivering against her stomach where he just barely held them off his face.

She tasted like heaven, like air, like everything, he couldn’t think. Slowly, she pulled him back, using another tight, almost painful grip that made his nook flutter to drag him away by the hair, and once he was at the angle she wanted him to be held him still. Finally, he opened his eyes again, and she was watching his face, her glowing eyes wide and excited, and he shuddered, moaning weakly for the attention.

Her first movements were slow, almost tentative, letting him get used to the slide of her bulge in his mouth, down his throat, and the way his nose would bump against her body when she bottomed out, teaching him a rhythm to breathe around her. 

“So fuckin’ pretty, little red, little mutant.” She purred, and it didn’t even feel like an insult. She held him perfectly still and thrusted against his mouth, and he had to focus to keep her other bulges off his face and out of his hair; she made sure he looked good, he couldn’t just ruin it by getting sloppy. “Karkat, baby, you’re so _good_ for mommy.”

He whined, pleased, even as her thrusts got rougher and made his eyes water. Pink-purple pre dribbled down his chin, mixed with saliva and sweat as it gathered in the divot of his throat and threatened to trail down his chest, and he felt beautiful, stunning, because she called him pretty. He was special, she loved him, so he had to be special.

Her orgasm made him choke, but she didn’t pull away until he really, truly couldn’t breathe, and then she released his head for him to drag himself back off of her bulge, coughing as it slid from his throat followed by a flood of material, her other bulges twisting anxiously against his fingers. He coughed, shaking, and curled against the ground, feeling strange and cold, alone despite her being there with him.

The top of her foot pressed against his nook through the thin silky panties he was wearing and he gasped, the alone feeling vanishing and being replaced with need. He rocked his hips down, but she pulled away just as fast, and left him whimpering, wiping ineffectively at his face to look at her. “Mommy, please.” He turned, and looked up at her, and she smiled wide, all her sharp, pretty teeth on display.

“Well. You asked me so nice, and you look so cod damn cute when you’re desperate.” She said, dropping a towel into his hands. He wiped his face and neck, but his gauzy clothes were ruined, and he felt a nameless guilt about not somehow keeping them clean. “I’ll teach you to keep yourself clean, pretty thing. You’re still learning.”

He nodded dumbly, and crawled towards her, but stopped a few steps away. “Mommy, please. I’m so wet. I wanna make you feel good, mommy.” He breathed, embarrassed at the whine in his voice, looking up her shapely body pleadingly. He was sticky, and wet, and empty, terribly empty, aching with the effort not to stuff his fingers into his nook right then.

“How about you undress, cutie? Let mommy take care of everything for her cute little Karkat, huh?” She purred, and he pulled at his clothes, struggling to get them off without tearing them off of himself, his neck and ears going hot as Condy laughed at his efforts above him until he finally managed to undress, and let his clothes crumple into a wet heap on the floor beside him while he climbed onto the platform. Condy watched him closely, and he felt exposed in a way that made his pan feel fuzzy and warm, like he was something delicious. “There you go, just on your front like that.”

Karkat obliged, laying on his front, his legs curled under him and his arms under his chin, back bent to keep his hips up for her. His thighs were wet and stuck together when he shifted them apart, and he felt his bulge twisting free of his sheathe before she even decided to touch him. She dug her claws into the round of his ass, almost enough to break the skin, and stinging wonderfully, and pulled his hips up, so he had to hold himself up on the bed, and he whimpered at the cold air on his nook.

“Hush, pretty thing. Let mommy fix it.” She cooed, stepping in behind him and letting her bulges slither over his skin, between his asscheeks and against his nook and bulge. They had some kind of texture, not quite smooth, and bumped over and against his pleasurenub as they moved with her slow, shallow grinds. Karkat couldn’t help but twitch and moan, and _beg._ He was begging, whining and squirming for her and saying _please mommy, please, I need it, please, I can’t wait._ She squeezed his ass again, and pulled back, just enough for her bulges to start to focus on his entrance. “Such a _hot_ thing, aren’t you.”

It wasn’t a question, and he couldn’t answer even if it was. She pressed forward, and her bulges slid in slowly, solidly. A constant, aching burn in his nook arced up his back as she pressed in more, and more, and just like every other time, she seemed to be tearing him in half and filling him, so deep he couldn’t breathe, so thick he might pass out, and perfect. His bulge twisted down against his pleasurenub, and she leaned over him to shove him down, first to his elbows, and then his shoulders, so his cheek was against the bed, as she filled him ever more. It felt endless, and so much, and bright-hot.

He hardly realized he came until the shaking stopped, and he felt material dripping down his thighs, his bulge writhing angrily at not being touched, grinding against his pleasurenub like a mindless vibrator. The sound in his ears like a meowbeast in heat was _him,_ he realized, him moaning and whining and not even making sense, drooling against the platform in his haze. And then her hips were against him, and he was so full he couldn’t breathe, but he wished she would never move, never take them out of his nook.

They moved, only a little, in the tightness of his nook, and each twitch made him see stars, the pain of her pressing him down and digging her claws into him and fucking him so deeply like she did dragging him closer to the edge much faster than he anticipated. And then, even worse, she actually started to move. Just slowly, grinding at first, but she was so deep he felt her in his seedflap, he wondered how someone could have so much bulge and stay conscious, he grabbed his bulge in his hand and stroked it fast and needy, oversensitive even before she grabbed the chain on his gill and pulled, just enough to ache.

One hand on his hip, Condy started to move more, pulling back just enough to make him want her again before slamming into him, leaning over to bite his shoulder hard enough to draw blood, and everything was pleasure. He couldn’t breathe, but he wasn’t scared, he was excited, he was wet and shaking and wanted more, and if he couldn’t breathe he wouldn’t be moaning like he was. 

Even when she stuffed two fingers into his mouth, he could breathe around them, or through his nose while he sucked on them, sloppy as he had been with her bulges. He felt himself drooling down his chin again, from holding his mouth part way open and moaning like he was. He was going to melt. She was so cold it almost burned, and it was perfect, her body slamming into his hard enough to push him forward, so she had to yank him back by the hold on his hip so many times he felt himself starting to bruise. When he came the second time, it was harder, his eyes rolling up in his head and his toes curling. Her fingers slipped out of his mouth and she kept moving, growling that he was a _good boy_ as his material poured out around her bulges on each thrust.

He couldn’t make his hands work, after that, gripping weakly at the sheet until he had to grab her wrists and she turned the hold around to pull him up, his arms behind him at an awkward angle. His head hung sort of limply as she moved, he was too weak to do much but moan and squirm and beg her for more, for anything, _please._ His bulge hurt, his nook was oversensitive and buzzing, tears dripping slowly down his cheeks.

It didn’t hurt, anything but, but it was _so much_ feeling he could hardly handle it. The pleasure aced up his back like electricity, through his hips into the base of his skull and made him dizzy, even when she set him back down against the platform and climbed over him, pressing him down with her full weight against his back. Her arm slid around his waist, possessive and secure, and he loved it, loved her.

She held herself just above him, not allowing herself to crush him into the platform completely, and rocked her hips, digging her teeth into his shoulder and biting his ear, and he felt like he was slipping, his mind from his body and his body from whatever it was inside of. The keening, low, crying noises of _too much, it’s too much,_ and _mommy, please,_ didn’t sound like a troll should even be able to make them, but he was. He was clawing at the sheets, his skin stinging as her thrusts got even more erratic, her skin slapping against his and her claws digging into his ribs as she pushed herself up by holding him down, and his vision went perfectly white.

When he could hear and see, she was grinding into his nook, finishing herself as she poured cold material into his seedflap and stroking his back languidly. “Good boy. You’re so good for mommy, Karkat, I’m so proud of you.” She was out of breath, and he couldn’t tell if he was still coming, or coming again, or if he was just always going to dangle on the pain-pleasure precipice he was at now.

Condy pulled back, slowly, and cum poured out behind her bulges, dripping down between his spread thighs onto the bed, and she hummed, pressing two fingers into him to make him shudder and try to move away. Then, she kissed his head, purring.

“Such a good boy. You just wait right here, Karkat. Mommy will send someone to take care of you.” He grunted in response, too sore and sensitive to even consider real words. His throat felt raw. He felt _accomplished._

For the second time that night, he fell asleep and woke up somewhere else.

Everything was disconnected for a while. Not long, he didn’t think, but a while. He blinked weakly against the bathroom lights that were always too bright, and realized he was in the tub. Wasn’t he in bed with Condy just before? His head was heavy, full of lead and swimming, so he closed his eyes, assuming the jades had moved him. When he did, the sounds of conversation floated to him, someone on a phone.

“I know that! I know, I just--” A pause, hurried shuffling feet. “I can’t do nothin’ and let her have him like this. She’s killing his pan. You don’t know that.” It was muffled, behind a door maybe, and he struggled to recall the voice. “Even if you were right, I’m not leaving my motherfucking palemate here. I don’t give a fuck about old deals.”

And silence. He tried to turn his head and everything ached, especially his throat when he whimpered. Trinee, where were they? He needed them. He was slipping into the tub and he couldn’t move, he felt cold and alone and sick to his stomach.

Strong, cold arms slid under his, lifted him back, and he sighed, leaning back into the chest behind him. “Hey, baby. Kar-kittles.” Gamzee, his sweet, deep voice and his soft, long-fingered hands and the smell of paint and his soap. Gamzee, perfect, foolish Gamzee, full of love like always. Karkat wanted to hold him.

“I’m so sore.” He croaked, twitching his hands uselessly only to be papped, firmly, on the chest. “Didn’t know you were here.”

He felt so tired. Drained, like he hadn’t slept in sweeps. “Got here while you was indisposed, sweetpea. I told the jades to run off ‘n make you some tea for your poor throat.” As he spoke, he slid into the tub, naked as the day he hatched, and moved Karkat to sit across his lap, head on his chest. Perfect. He was the perfect troll, the perfect moirail. “Had to take care of my poor palemate, ‘specially after so long without him.” He rained kisses across Karkat’s cleaned cheeks and forehead, purring all slow and soothing.

“Sorry I’m not more lively. I missed you so fucking much.” He said, taking Gamzee’s hand and kissing his knuckles, holding them to his cheek. His Gamzee. He couldn’t even imagine being embarrassed that Gamzee saw him fucked out and dripping, it was _Gamzee,_ the troll who had carried him bodily to the bathroom when he got that stomach illness and who had washed the vomit out of his hair more than a few times. “I love you, diamonds. I love you.”

Why was he crying? Something in his chest ached, and he couldn’t connect it to anything in his pan. All he had was tears, streaming down his face and broken, painful sobs against Gamzee’s chest, his blunted claws digging into the skin of his back. Why did he let them cut his claws? He felt exposed, he felt vulnerable and weak and everything hurt too much to think, the only thing keeping him from screaming was Gamzee’s cool, strong hands petting firmly down his back. Down, down, pause. Down, down, pause.

“Breathe. Breathe. Good.” He purred, kissing Karkat’s temple, and the tears slowed. “It’s okay, baby. I’m right here. Ain’t nothin’ coming in that’ll get through me to you. I know how you’re feelin’, all broke up and sore and empty inside. Like you woke up from a good ass dream and found out you were still livin’ alone. S’onna them things.”

That was right. “Wh-why does it hurt? I’m so happy, I don’t, why am I hurting now? I was fine.” He looked up at Gamzee, his eyes feeling puffy already, and for a long moment Gamzee only continued petting his back. Down, down, pause. Down, down, pause.

“Withdrawal, sugargrub.” He said, finally, his voice tight. “From that… From _her_ voodoos. Got your pan hooked up all sideways and upside down from where it’s supposed to be.”

Condy’s voodoos? That made no sense. He must have shown that on his face, because Gamzee’s eyes started to glow, the way they did when he couldn’t find words when they were together and he just wanted to convey his thoughts directly. There was always a kind of knock, an asking of permission, before Gamzee entered his pan, and Karkat always said yes. And once he did, Karkat could relax, listen to Gamzee breathe and think and feel safe with him.

Now, he didn’t convey anything specific, just the need for his attention that he felt, the way Karkat seemed to glow softly when he entered a room because Gamzee adored him, that bone-shaking adoration that sees every flaw and loves them, too. That was fine. Karkat stroked the side of Gamzee’s throat, purring, feeling too comfortable to want to question what he was doing, poking around with his voodoos inside his skull. Checking inventory?

“Gotta make sure you’re all here for me, Karkat.” He teased back, his voice mirrored in Karkat’s pan and ears both. “See what got moved around since I last had my feelers all on you.”

His voice was so soothing. And his touch. Even before Gamzee had managed to get away from sopor, he had always been soothing, always been sweet and gentle and loving, even when he didn’t recognize Karkat for his moirail, so Karkat himself was fine to let him poke around, investigate, whatever. He would do almost anything for Gamzee.

Almost?

“She sunk her claws in deep, baby. You’re okay. I love you too much to mind anythin’ small as that.” He murmured, lips against Karkat’s forehead. Karkat slid his hands up to Gamzee’s cheeks, holding them gently, and looked him in the eyes, feeling less lonely than, he realized, he had felt for weeks. “I’m gonna make all this better. It’s gonna be hard on you, but you’re so fuckin’ strong, dewdrop, I know you got it in you to fight. I’m gonna make everythin’ better but it’s gonna take me a while. I made a deal.”

He blinked, looking away from Gamzee’s mouth. He always felt warm and affectionate when Gamzee was in his pan, always struggled to keep up. “What kind of deal? Are you okay?” Like he could help. He knew he couldn’t leave. He didn’t want to!

“I’m fine. I’m gonna have to take over with the whole carnival, though. That’s my end. But once I do, I’ve got you, baby.” He said, pressing his forehead into Karkat’s. His voice was tight, thick, like he was fighting some strong emotions. “She’s never gonna put a single goddamn claw on you once I’ve got the throne under my ass, that’s the deal. And I’m gonna make her keep her end of it. And I’m gonna make sure she can’t hurt you anymore.”

“She doesn’t hurt me. She’s never hurt me. I love her, and I know the Empress loves me, too. I’m special.” He said, immediately. He leaned back, and pointed to the small bar through his gill, glinting pink on either end, full of pride. Gamzee just hadn’t noticed how special he was, that’s all. “She loves me. She’s taking care of me, and I like being here, Gamzee.”

His mouth tasted sour.

Gamzee’s hands slid down his sides, to his hips and then thighs, pressing the palm-sized bruises spread over his skin. “She’s been hurtin’ you, baby. She’s just in your pan all the time, tellin’ you what makes you wanna stay. You’re not the only pet she’s ever had, or the only one she’s got now.” He could barely hear Gamzee’s whispers, the thickness in his voice making it hard to understand at that volume, but he heard.

And it ached. Deep, deep in his gut, it burned and twisted like some kind of weapon, not only because he wasn’t the only one, wasn’t special, but from the pain in his moirail’s voice, from the way he struggled to meet Karkat’s eyes and the fact that somewhere, in the far reaches of Karkat’s pan where Gamzee pressed and prodded, he knew it was true. It hurt, it was the most painful loss he could imagine, and he had never had it, only an illusion of being good enough, for once, being perfect to someone.

He sobbed again, and Gamzee pressed him back into his chest, legs curled behind him like that would save him some pain while he wailed. He wanted to be enough. He wanted to be good, to be someone’s ideal, to be special to her not just because he was a novelty color, but he didn’t get to have that, and it hurt desperately, hurt like a physical wound. He couldn’t breathe around the pain, couldn’t think, everything was the feeling of being a disappointment, a failure, a mutant freak all over again, when he was so close to feeling like he wasn’t one.

Down, down, pause. Cold, calloused palm smoothing down his back, slow and steady. Down, down, pause. Breathe, in, out. Breathe. It still ached, it would ache, he felt, for a long time, and now it was raw, but he could breathe. He could handle the next breath, and then exhale, and breathe in again. He could handle that much, he could focus on Gamzee’s careful, measured breathing and he could keep up, he could cry a little calmer, breathe a little slower, let the roughness in his throat rest.

“There you go, baby.” Gamzee sighed, into his hair. “There you go. I know it hurts, bein’ lied to. Told you’re somethin’ and then told you’re not. I know. Keep breathin’, I’m not going.”

Karkat nodded, curling his face closer to Gamzee’s neck. Keep breathing. He could do that. He was already clean, so he only felt dimly cold when Gamzee stood, humming some disjointed tune and drying Karkat off like he was a grub, like he couldn’t be expected to help himself and needed to be fully cared for. It was good. He felt cherished, truly, not just prized but _loved._ Being taken care of like this was everything, the gentle way Gamzee moved him, the familiarity of his hands under Karkat’s thighs, the smell of him that stirred calm in Karkat’s pan better than any drug could.

“This is gonna ache, sweetness.” He breathed, curling Karkat into the bed and pressing against his back. He was glad there was no sopor, so Gamzee could join him, though he hadn’t thought about it before. What would ache? “Just hold my hands.”

He did so, taking both of Gamzee’s hands in his own and letting his eyes fall closed and his head fall against the pillow. Before he could ask what would hurt, he felt it. It wasn’t quite physical, beyond an emotional pain as it was. Like a migraine, deep and pulsing, sending shatters of green-orange light flickering over his vision and making him feel sick, making him clasp Gamzee’s hands tighter. It ached, so much, and he felt it. It was Gamzee, moving his pan, moving the parts inside himself, forcing his mind to change.

Forcing away shades of pink, he thought, bleary and shaking. It hurt so badly, he thought he’d die, and he cried into the pillow, squeezing Gamzee’s hands and only just aware that it was hurting him to do this, whatever it was. It was a show of force, exhausting and pushing more power than he likely had ever had to use, but even when the pain was so much, so blinding and exquisite that Karkat hoped he would just black out and escape it for a moment and begged Gamzee to stop with everything in him, Gamzee kept pushing, driving his pan into the right shape.

His legs kicked, his head thrashed. This wasn’t right. Gamzee was supposed to be gentle, not like this, not taking deals and breaking Karkat’s pusher and making him sob and beg to _stop, please, Gamzee, it hurts so much, please just stop._ He wasn’t supposed to be like that.

Just as those thoughts started in his pan, Gamzee stopped, and sobbed against the back of Karkat’s neck, clinging to him tightly. “I’m so motherfuckin’ sorry, baby, I’m so sorry. I wanted all of it done now but I can’t, I’m so sorry, I can’t. I have to do it again later, I can’t finish it now. I’m so sorry.” He was crying, deep, shuddering sobs that made him go from whispering to almost shouting as he struggled to breathe properly, and Karkat was matching him, unable to move, every breath making his pan spin.

“But, I can see you again? You’re coming back?” He asked, struggling to turn onto his side and face Gamzee, stroking the tears off his cheek and wiping his chin with the blanket. “You’re coming back, right? You said the deal was to be the Highblood, but you can come and see me again, right? You’re not just going to leave me here with her. You’re coming back.”

Gamzee nodded, kissing his palm, and slid his hands up to rub at Karkat’s scalp. “I’ll always come back, until I got you safe in my arms, baby. Always. Never gonna leave you forever.” So sincere, Karkat could cry, if it didn’t hurt to.

A knock at the door made him jump, and Gamzee kissed his face a few times as the jades stepped through the door, eyes down, with a pot of tea and a ramekin of honey with some cups on a tray. None of them looked at him directly, or at Gamzee, instead just setting the tray on his table and leaving just as silently, almost mournful, heads down and hands clasped in front of themselves like they’d witnessed a tragedy. He kind of agreed, now that he could think about it without Condy in his head reminding him that he was happy here, that he was special.

He wasn’t special, he thought. It was stupid to imagine that he was anything but a freak, and he curled his head into the pillow Gamzee had used when he stood up on wobbly legs to serve him tea with altogether too much honey. It was sticky, and felt just slightly thicker than tea should, but he drank it anyway, letting the taste coat his tongue and the honey coat his throat, and he felt better, even though Gamzee was dressing as he did.

“I gotta go, baby, but I’m gonna be talking to you every night. I’m always thinkin’ on you, Karkat. I promise.” He said, taking the empty cup from his hands and setting it aside to kiss Karkat’s forehead again. He was so large, it was easy for him to manipulate Karkat’s body back under the covers, tuck him in gently and put a cold cloth over his eyes, and kiss him again. “I love you, moonslight palest dandelion.”

Karkat murmured it back to him, reaching gently with his hands, but let himself be pressed down, and, once the door was closed behind Gamzee’s imposing form, let himself fall into a deep, dreamless rest. He would have a long night, he wagered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter two: emotional boogaloo! another commission and another fun thing to work on. if you're interested in another chapter right quick, hmu on tumblr and we can chat about it. thanks!!

**Author's Note:**

> a commission! this was fun!
> 
> [edit] to explain, the later chapters are planned because the commissioner is interested in more, but if anyone else wants to commission the next chunk that's also okay, just message me on tumblr and we can work it out. thanks so much for the interest!!


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